


Collide

by DamadiSangue



Series: Broken inside [3]
Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Age Difference, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 04:53:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16234595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DamadiSangue/pseuds/DamadiSangue
Summary: And he had smiled at that display of ambition, as two years later Monica Ravoski would indeed die by his hands - her tracheasquashed,her guts spilled on the white floor.Two years later he would show everyone what chaining up a beast like him meant.Two years later he would ask for her, and a gaunt molecular bioengineering PhD student would replywho?And he’d respondAlexandra. Alexandra Wesker. Where is she?





	Collide

"Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real."  
\- Cormac McCarthy -

 

**Collide**

 

 

**Canada, 2017**

  
The sun burns, the air vibrates.  
Chris stares at Natalia as if he met her for the first time -a white sundress on her tanned skin.  
He looks for her eyes, smiling when finding them - _ehi, Nat: you ok?  
_ She grew up, indeed; sharp face, flexed body - _bent_ as if she was ready to attack.  
“Chris.”  
Redfield rubs his forehead with the back of the hand, sighing.  
“Always on those books, uh?”  
He could have told her something smarter. He could have shown a bit of his charm of the young and all-winning American boy, the football player, the star of the high school.

_He could have._

Cicadas break the silence, dry grass and topsoil underneath Natalia’s bare feet.  
And there’s _a moment_ -the hinges of the external door creaking, Barry stepping forward- when never had Natalia ever looked _so_ different to him.  
She slightly curves the corner of her lips upward, hinting a mocking and rough laugh.  
“Oh, _Chris_.” she replies, and something _shakes_ in the bottom of his stomach - an aching yet _known_ contraction.  
  
_Christopher._

Natalia widens her smile and a dead story _breathes_ with it.

 

**Unknown location, 2012  
  
**

We die as we lived.  
Living hurts, dying doesn't.  
Dying is not the end, just another step of what we call _life._

_Bullshit._

Living, dying; just meaningless words for the Progenitor virus.

**  
  
Canada, 2017**

  
An isolated house in the middle of marshlands, Louisiana.  
A lost family, a _broken_ girl - recreated in the image of an already putrid dream.  
Two survivors, a company reborn -another one concealed.  
An experiment, a highly toxic virus outbreak.  
_Mold_ , they call it.  
Transcriptional regulation, Alex comprehends.  
_The H.C.F. is involved_ , Redfield says, _Wesker’s old militia_.  
_We have proofs_ , he goes on, leaning his elbows on the table, _documents, photos: files someone tried to get rid of.  
_ Barry takes a sip of his beer, a thoughtful Chris glides his index finger on his glass of water.  
Alex’s Progenitor murmurs and _seeks_.

**  
Unknown location, 2012**

  
It’s a _strange_ feeling.  
It’s like a bite in the middle of his chest, a weight nothing can lift up.  
It is a _lump_ of late words, empty gestures -now useless.  
He stands up slowly, cautiously; his left leg almost ceases, his right knee collides with the corner of the desk.  
He falls forward, leaning entirely on his hands and crumpling the papers he holds in his fingers -  ** _her_.**  
A furious, irregular breath.  
In the dark of the room it’s just his eyes twinkling - malicious, ruthless, _wounded.  
_ He averts his eyes from the monitor, laying them on his left.  
  
_Alexandra Wesker.  
__Status: deceased.  
  
_ He bares his teeth, _bites_ \- greedy for his own poison.  
  
_Report signed by Claire Redfield and Barry Burton, respectively agent of TerraSave and BSAA consultant, U.S.A. branch._

He breathes deeply, clenching his fists -ink and ashes in his palms.  
  
_Final conclusions verified and approved by agent Christopher James Redfield._

The sour savour of his own bile down his throat, beneath his tongue - in his heart.

_Case closed.  
_

The witch is dead, the fairytale saved: what a shame _it is_ _not_ your fairytale.

**  
  
Canada, 2017**

  
The mask _tears apart_ , pieces of skin _and_ glass.  
Alex claws at the edge of the sink, inhales, exhales - controlled movements, regular and _symmetric_.  
She closes her eyes, clenching her eyelids - red and white explosions confusing her.

_Releasing her._

She gropes around for the tap valve - _stupid piece of shit: not even a mixer tap you wanted to buy_ \- dominates the retching.  
She opens her eyes again - her pupil thin and black, her iris a puddle of blood swallowing everything else.

Crack.  
  
The sink _breaks apart_ , fragment of ceramic and varnish underneath her fingers.  
She turns the tap on, runs her hands in her hair, along her neck - to her shoulders.

_It can’t be._

Hope is a burning hand in her chest, sinking and _ripping_.

**  
  
Unknown location, 2012**

  
“Everything is going according to plans.”  
He nods, tapping with the tip of his fingers on the head of the snake on top of his cane.   
“The subjects were infected at 8.10 am.”  
The silver asp opens its jaws, obsidian and wood among its scales.  
“A - 001 died short after the infection; A - 002 started mutating at 9.07 am.”  
Nadine lifts the third sheet up, biting her lower lip.  
“A - 003 seems compatible. For now.”  
She closes the folder, taking it to her chest - she studies him sideway, _curious_.

_Come closer, my child: I just want to see you more clearly._

Nadine keeps quiet, awaiting - **wanting**.

_Too much - everything._

And she reminds him of Excella - of her ambition, her arrogance.

_Not of her innocence._

She’s Aelita’s hair - shades of red and chestnut brown mimicking an untimely autumn.

_But not her aching melancholy._

He glides with his eyes on her profile, stiffening the line of his jaw - and there’s something _stretching_ , tearing.  
Nadine hints a smile, black and white pearls adorning her neck - soft hips, a tight-fitting lab coat.  
He could tell she has Alex’s eyes, the same pale skin, the same way of tilting her head to the right when she’s thinking about some complicated stuff.

_But it would be a **pitiful** lie._

The smell of her longing is _almost_ nauseating.

**  
Canada, 2017**

  
White collars and silk ties parade on the way leading to redemption - Joseph Anderson, _Blue Umbrella_ ’s brand new C.E.O., standing at the lectern.  
Kathy stops in the middle of the kitchen, stares at Anderson’s young and smiling faces - _poor deluded man_ \- and sighs.  
“Is this ever going to end, Barry?”  
“ _It has to_.” Burton replies, putting more pepper on his pulled pork “We’re working to make this happen.”  
Alex keeps quiet, swallowing the reply _dancing_ on her tongue - annoyingly pushing the avocado sauce away from her.  
Barry raises an eyebrow, brushing her arm.  
“You ok, Nat?”  
Anderson keeps on talking - _we are aware of the mistakes we made in the past, but the company you’re facing now is a new one, **reborn**_ \- the Progenitor virus all tangled up and hurting.  
“I’m fine.” she manages to reply, sipping some water “I’m just sorry to see how people always let themselves be fooled.”  
Kathy sits down, Barry sweetens his eyes - caresses her wrist with his thumb.  
“Umbrella’s not going to hurt you anymore, Nat. I promise.”  
Natalia bends her head down, nodding - a child _and_ a victim, an upset young woman.  
Alex counts all of her scars (Nadia, Spencer, Umbrella, _Albert_ ) and lets her memories smother every other thought.

 

**Unknown location, 2012**

  
Tap, tap, tap.

“Subject A - 003 died tonight, sir.”  
He nods, leaning forward -studying the remaining subjects.  
“May we proceed with the next inoculations?”  
“Yes.”  
His voice is old, tired.

 _Rough.  
  
_ Nadine wears a vivid sweater under her lab coat, her hair styled in a high chignon, and wonders _if this_ is the way fate has chosen to mock him.

_For his mistakes, for his ambitions._

“I’ll make sure you have the results as soon as possible.”  
He keeps silent, staring at his own profile reflected in the reinforced glass of the containment cells - he smiles, but there’s no happiness in it.  
Nadine notices and curves the corner of her lips - who knows what he’s laughing at.

_Is he laughing at me? At the prisoners? At himself?_

Sorrow holds her voice.

 

**Canada, 2017**

  
Sitting under the porch of the house, Alex _thinks_.  
She torments the silver paper of a chocolate bar with her nails, ripping one corner, then another one.  
Ever since she had _crushed_ Natalia as if she was an annoying insect she’d barely had any opportunities to _remember_   - not as many as she would have loved.  
Living with Barry was... _frenzied_ from a certain point of view, extremely boring from the other one.  
Wearing the mask of the little girl had been _difficult_ for her - she didn’t know how to behave as one, and only when she had grown into a teenager things had gone easier.  
She sighs, eating a piece of chocolate; pressing it to her palate, letting it melt on her tongue, down her throat.  
Alexandra Wesker was dead to the world. She was finished. _Butchered_. Burnt down to ashes by a RPG - 7 in 2011.  
Papers about her transfer into Natalia had burnt together with the Tower, forever lost.  
Those who could ever betray her and tell what was really happening on that island had become dust by now, Stuart included.

 _Stuart_.

Alex massages her temples, rubbing her thumb and index together - chocolate and blueberry.  
Nothing could ever make BSAA suspect anything, no proof left to examine.

_Not even their **only** photo._

The Progenitor virus slips amongst her cells, monitoring, _protecting_ a body that is now whole, perfect.  
Eyes half-closed, Alex stares at a blackbird landing amongst Kathy’s orchids, looking around.  
She sticks her nails into the palms of her hand, releases a stifled -  _agonizing_ \- moan, as if all of her sorrow was to be condensed in that one, devastating, sound.

 _Albert Wesker.  
_ _Status: deceased._

There are times she wonders where’s the meaning in all of this, the purpose of _this_ **empty** life.  
There are times when she wakes up at night and it seems to her he’s sitting there, on the armchair in the corner, studying her.

_Watching over her._

Other times he’s a stinging sensation beneath her skin, amongst her bones - the Progenitor virus suddenly agitating, sniffing, searching for something it’s never able to catch.  
The blackbird sinks its beak into the topsoil it had turned over, pulling out a long and whitish worm - then, it resumes its flight.  
The Progenitor virus goes on, desperately hunting.

 

**Unknown location, 2013**

  
His scars look better under the flow of lukewarm water - they almost seem _artistic.  
_ He studies the swollen mass of skin of his knees, the reddish strings running along his calves, his ankles.  
The Progenitor virus endlessly works to repair the damages he suffered from the volcano, but two missiles right in his face and a lava bath didn’t surely help.  
At the beginning it was just black and cold unconsciousness.  
He was _off,_ but at the same time never had he ever been that _awake.  
_ For a terrible moment he had wondered if _that_ meant death: an everlasting conscience trapped in the void.  
Then pain had come: hot, blinding. _White._

_Like her._

When the first nerves had started reforming, he’d also started screaming and it had seemed to him he’d been doing that for a _long_ time.  
He had been blind for months, a whole year, perhaps.  
He could sense smells, movements, but couldn’t distinguish the figures running all around him.  
Uroboros had protected him, but the Progenitor virus had _saved_ him, regenerating all of his tissues from the mere remnants of a rib.

_A dark and awful Adam._

_It can’t be him_ , he’d heard them murmur.  
_He should be dead_ , they said, and he believed it, too.  
_Oh, fuck_ , the next exclamation, _that sucks; look at it, Monica, look; the abductor is regenerating right before our eyes.  
_ A mild and floral scent: a woman, maybe in her thirties.  
_Put him in the sterile chamber **now:**_ _if anything contaminates him we could lose our greatest chance to study an alpha B.O.W.  
_ And he had smiled at that display of ambition, as two years later Monica Ravoski would indeed die by his hands - her trachea _squashed,_ her guts spilled on the white floor.  
Two years later he would show _everyone_ what chaining up a beast like him meant.  
Two years later he would ask for her, and a gaunt molecular bioengineering PhD student would reply _who?  
_ And he’d respond _Alexandra. Alexandra Wesker. Where is she?  
_ Tim would then take the stump of his wrist to his chest, would start crying and begging and he would lift him up, grabbing his other hand and _stretching.  
__Alexandra Wesker_ , his last warning - underneath his fingers muscles about to collapse, tendons starting to stretch.  
_She’s dead_ , Tim would therefore scream, a trail of pale snot on his upper lip, all around his nostrils, _she died in September, killed by agent Barry Burton.  
_ He bends his head down under the shower jet, closing his eyes; listening to the calm buzzing of the virus, to its tireless repair of tissues, cells, organs.  
Their story is nothing more than a sequence of missed opportunities they had called _fate_.

 

**Canada, 2017**

  
Many people had tried.

_Simmons. Carla. The Families._

Many had sought power, but no one had ever been close enough to touch it.

_Slaughtered along the way to immortality._

Joseph Anderson is forty-two, he has a wife, no children. He smiles at the cameras, shaking a smooth and neat hand.

_Around his ring finger a symbol Alex knew well._

_Blue Umbrella is here to help_ , he says, and everyone applauds.  
_Our company wants to make amends for the mistakes of the past, and starts by apologizing for taking sons away from their mothers, for the lives lost, the hopes annihilated in less than an instant_ , he keeps on saying, bending his head down.  
_It starts by repudiating the madness of an old fool whose name has sadly become popular_ , he replies, stiffening his gaze - mimicking the hero without blemish and without fear.  
_Ozwell. E. Spencer,_ he murmurs, and that name falls like a boulder, shattering the absorbed silence of the audience.  
He clings to the lectern with long fingers, thinning his pink lips - raising his fist towards the cameras.  
_We won’t let another Raccoon City happen: our business is_ _**your** _ _life_ , he concludes, and people nod enthusiastically.

_Desperately searching for something to believe in._

Alex eats another orange biscuit, chewing it slowly, without urgency: behind the white and blue logo the blood of the innocents is still screaming.

 

**Unknown location, 2013**

  
He’s already died - too many times.  
He has died and he has always come back, but this time it’s different.

_Aimless._

He gently touches the lukewarm cup of coffee with his thumb, repeating that gesture again and again, distracted.  
Before him Alex’s face is an aseptic and empty photo - blonde hair gathered by her side, transparent eyes.  
A golden thread around her neck, an Umbrella Corporation ID card on her chest - red lips, clenched in an irritated line.  
He moves her file to his side, studying those concerning New Umbrella - Simmons’ failure, Carla’s madness.

_A love being just ashes and dust._

He studies Sherry Birkin’s smiling face - the little freckles around the root of her nose (as Annette’s), the sloppy way she clings to the arm of the boy standing by her side (the same childish gestures as William’s).  
He turns the page - he turns his l _ife_ \- and Aelita’s face is like an echo of a blurry and fading existence.  
Pale, washed out: Aelita would die in a few months.  
Not much is left of her strength, other than the broken way she intertwines her fingers with those of the same boy in the previous photo, as if she couldn’t leave him.

_As if she didn’t want to._

He sips his coffee, standing still on the following page - uncertain.  
He closes his eyes, lying back on the armchair and massaging his eyelids.  
Jake Muller’s got his own profile.  
He’s got the same cocky pose with which he had welcomed Birkin the first day of work, arctic and wolfish irises.

_His son._

He breathes in deeply, closing the folder with a sudden movement - Alex’s face almost staring at him in disapproval.  
Amongst his thoughts the Progenitor Virus whispers one name - one memory.

_Eve._

 

**Canada, 2018**

  
When she was awarded by her first high school diploma she was twelve - Spencer by her side and his old hand on her shoulder.  
A few months after her first diploma she was also awarded by a bullet in her head - her second death.  
Her first diploma portrayed a forgotten girl in baggy clothes - a black cotton suit, pearls on her ears, heavy as her heart.  
“The first of your class! I knew you were to do great things, Nat!”  
Moira grabs her in a clumsy and sweaty hug - she laughs, suddenly taking a picture of her, a selfie full of blurry outlines and too much light.  
Alex hints a smile, bending her head down - murmuring her gratitude, _empty_ words.  
Kathy wipes her tears, her hands intertwined under her chin.  
Barry gives her a high five and Alex replies without hesitation, knowing that just a _gentle push_ would be enough to send him to the other side of the field.  
“I reserved a table at Carmelo’s, your favourite.”  
Claire lightly caresses her hair, rubbing the tips between her thumb and index finger.  
“They are so blond.” she notices, raising an eyebrow.  
Alex clings to the rolled-up parchment she holds in her fingers, moistening her lips.  
“Maybe it’s the sun.” she replies, and Claire still stares at her nape for a moment before shrugging and smiling.  
“Let’s go then! I’m looking forward to eating that pizza Carmelo is so popular for!”  
Alex breathes in, blinking once, twice - rubbing the top of her hand on her dry eyes.  
Her first diploma had been grey, colourless: the antechamber of a silent and painful existence.

 _Then Umbrella had come -_ _ **he had**_ _**come**_ _._

Polly comes up beside her, asking for a photo - _you’re so beautiful, Nat!_ \- Kathy kneels before them, taking a picture.  
Chris looks at her from the distance, arms crossed on his chest - _something_ in his eyes.

 _A memory. A sensation.  
  
_~~Natalia~~ Alex _shines_ in the light of that lukewarm June, _she burns_ ; when she places her eyes on Chris the face of a dead woman overlaps with hers.

 

**Unknown location, 2013**

  
“We recreated the settings you asked for.”  
A macabre parade of memories; ghosts from a time long forgotten.  
“El Pueblo, Kijuju, Raccoon City.”  
In between his own ruins he finds a known office again, a symbol under which he had died - _reborn._  
On the side wall of the police department a fallen star _shines_ , two desks to its left (Burton, Valentine) three to its right (Vickers, Frost, _Redfield_ ).  
He averts his eyes, placing them on the closed door concealing the farthest room - darkened glass, medals of no importance, too big secrets.  
Nadine comes up beside him, brushing against his arm - slipping with her thumb towards the fold of his elbow.  
“The subject will be taken here soon.”  
Everything around him mimics a life he’s not even sure he’s ever lived.

 

**New York, 2018**

  
Her roommate name is Maggie: like a dog.  
She hanged up a poster of the X-Men (her favourite ones) above the bed and was allowed admission to Columbia University thanks to a scholarship (as she was).  
She’s got crooked teeth and walks ungracefully, but she’s also got a sharp mind - and she’s quiet.  
Alex scratches her forehead with the pen, studies the data she was able to gather about Blue Umbrella.  
Maggie offers her a butter cream donut, smiling.  
“Students of the second year are having a party tonight, Nat: we should go.”  
Alex mutters something, staying focused on the little oddities she’s found - such _perfect_ financial declarations to almost seem impossible, scientific and lab materials ordered with surgical precision, no more, no less.  
Maggie sits on the bed beside her, Alex takes her knees to her chest and keeps on reading, ignoring her.  
“ _Come on_ , Nat: just one night.”  
Alex raises an eyebrow, stares at her from above the edge of the book of chemistry.  
“No.”  
“James will attend, too.”  
“And...?”  
“He’s the coolest of the institute.” Maggie replies, as if this explain everything.  
Alex curls her lips on her teeth, hiding behind the book - she would just backhand slap her to chop off her head.  
Maggie touches her thigh, tapping.  
“So, are you coming with me? _Shit_ , Nat, it wouldn’t hurt you get out sometimes and give it up: you know what they say about you, don’t you?”  
“ _Yes_ , and I don’t care.”  
Maggie wrinkles her brows, toying with the dolphin she holds around her neck.  
“You could have everything, Nat, _everything_ : it’s sad to see how you close yourself off to people instead.”  
Alex shrugs, dismissing her words, but a lump of rage and tiredness in her throat threatens to betray her at any breath.

_You could have everything, Nat._

In her fingers Blue Umbrella’s logo is a ruthless symmetry.

 

**Unknown location, 2013**

  
Jackson is a zealous chief researcher - _too much_ zealous.  
He studies him sideways, giving him troubled and anxious looks.  
“Subject 3A7 is doing well, sir.”  
“Uhm.”  
Abraham takes a note on the edge of the paper, standing on his tip toes and stretching the numb muscles of his ankles.  
“Next stage, sir?”  
“Africa.” he replies, leaning with both hands upon his cane “Kijuju.”  
Jackson nods, keeps on gliding along his figure - brushing him when he exits the observation room and proclaiming his sentence to death.  
He tilts his chin to the right, staring at his shoulder, where a grey hair had fallen out before: Abraham Jackson won’t live enough to watch the newscast at 8.00 am.

 

**New York, 2018**

_In don’t know where she went_ , Maggie will say, biting her thumb’s nail - the one decorated with the ghost from PacMan.  
_When I got out to the library she was here in her room: she was reading something about biology, I’m not sure_ , she’ll repeat, adjusting her eyeglasses on her nose.  
_A boy? No no no, not Nat: she was really reserved, too much reserved - focused on her things to exasperation. She didn’t have time for that. Or maybe she wasn’t just interested_ , she will confirm, moistening her lips.  
_Yes, of course I’ll call you if I get to know something about her. Shit, I’m so sorry for her father, Burt... Ben... Barry! Yes, there he is, Barry: he’s such a good man from that I could see_ , and she will furrow her forehead, showing herself hurt, perhaps even bothered.  
_Thanks to you, agent, really_ , she will conclude, taking a hand to her chest.

Alex stares at her photo stuck to the light poles, tightly gathering her hair on her nape, lowering the dark cap on her face.  
In a month her story will be already a short paragraph on page 3 of the New York newspaper, in two months just a footnote.  
In five months she will officially be included in the National Missing And Unidentified System, after a year even Barry will have accepted the grief caused by her disappearance.  
A cat mewls among the garbage bins, the air of the city is cold against her face, under her clothes.  
_Oh_ , he will search for her, that’s sure: he could even unleash that loyal dog Redfield is, or maybe Claire, but where she’s going is so far away that neither the BSAA will ever be able to reach.  
Alex takes out the phone she got from one of the hidden headquarters of the old Umbrella, accesses a bunch of accounts Stuart had been such _reasonable_ to save.  
Alexandra Wesker _**rises** _ , Natalia Korda Burton _**dies** _.  
Blue Umbrella’s logo ripples for some minutes on the screen, then disappears; Alex types something, enters their servers - starting to download sensitive data: everything hidden behind that politically correct pile of shit.

 

Click.

 

The trap has sprung, the alarms have activated.  
The wolf has smelled its prey, ~~innocent~~ rabbit lost in his territory.  
Alex smiles and gets back walking.

 

**Unknown location, 2014**

  
“A new type of virus.”  
“Exactly.”  
“And you’re asking my help to develop it.”  
Glenn hints a half smile, brushing the edge of his glass of bourbon.  
“You’re _a legend_ in this field; I can’t think of anyone better to use the A-virus at its best.”  
“Uhm.”  
Arias intertwines his fingers, leaning forward.  
“The virus is dormant in infected subjects; it spreads through liquids, water included.”  
No response.  
“I need to stabilize the second phase, activation: making the virus distinguish among friends and foes.”  
The snake head stares at him, malicious.  
“And how do you think you can do that, _Mr._ _Arias_?”  
Glenn relaxes his shoulder, the muscular curve of his thighs.  
“I need a _trigger_ \- something to activate the virus. And then something that deactivates it. Something able to make immune people invisible to the virus and in the eyes of the infected.”  
“Molecular mimicking.”  
“More or less.”  
The man sitting on the other side of the desk raises an eyebrow, closing the folder he’d given to him.  
“And what makes you think I’m willing to help, _Glenn_?”  
Arias leans towards him, getting closer.  
“Because you shared the same ideas as mine one time ago, _doctor_. Because not long ago _you tried_ , too.”  
Arias holds his stare, baring his teeth.  
“Because, if my source is correct, the government took you away  _more_ than a pair of functioning legs and a dream, _doctor_.”  
The pain of the gods changes to rage and evolves into blind madness.

 

**New York, 2018  
  
**

Two days: it took them so long to find her.  
Two days: that is how fast _Red Umbrella_ ’s security is.  
Alex is put down to her knees, falls forward - a Beretta SC 70/90 pointed between her shoulder blades.  
Her name’s still warm on the pages of the local newspaper, Barry’s a restless soul, full of hope _and_ fear.  
“To the ground.” they say, and Alex puts her hands up behind her head, indulging them.  
The sedative turns her conscience off in a few instants.

 

**Unknown location, 2015**

  
Nadine is damp skin, soaked by a longing he knows well.

_Ambition._

She flexes against his body, releasing a sequence of little - irritating - moans.  
Nadine is _noisy_ ; full breasts, an inconsistent will.

_Excella was better._

He murmurs something against her chest – clawing at her nape, _tugging_ at her; he bites, forcing her to a sudden and scared gasp.

_Excella was braver._

Nadine half-closes her eyes _\- the monster of the fairytale is not what you’ve been expecting, uh? -_  brushing his face as if she could smooth his corners, his cracks.  
He lifts her up against the lab wall, _sinking_ in her - pressing his thumb on her clit, pulling her head back, the index finger in her cheek.  
Nadine clings to his shoulders, following his movements - his rage.

_Aelita would have returned blow for blow, laughing at his predictable ostentation of strength._

She etches bloody half moons between his shoulder blades, screaming - _she comes_ , gathering all around him like a snake, suffocating him.  
He looks at her relaxing in his arms, slipping her tongue in the hollow of his neck, towards his mouth -  _looking for him_ , and only finding a thin and annoyed line.  
Nadine frowns, staring at him - she doesn’t understand.

_What did I do wrong?_

He strengthens the grip on her face - wide and surprised eyes -

_He’s going to kill me._

\- _opening_ her _up_ , sinking until it hurts them both.  
Nadine bites her lower lip, burns - between her thighs, in her chest.  
The orgasm devours his restless conscience.

 

**Unknown location, 2018**

  
Chains around her wrists, around her ankles.  
A black hood covering her face, no clothes protecting her from cold - smoky grey and red lace (La Perla, Peony line).  
They made comments on her charm, on how it would be _right_ to beat her until she loses her teeth, her dignity, while listening to her blood dripping on the floor - _on them_.  
They pushed her, laughing at her - at her such polished and _childish_ nails.  
They promised her a good treatment, one of those she will remember, if she’s still alive.  
They threatened and intimidated her; they listed a sequence of torture techniques that would have made her cry.

_Ripped skin and mutilated organs._

Alex had smiled the whole time.

 

**Unknown location, 2016**

   
“How do you want to name it, sir?”  
Nadine leans beyond his shoulder, brushing his nape with her fingertips - pulling them back as soon as he moves.  
“We need a friendly name.”

_Oh, really? User-friendly, uh? Of course: as if this was enough to erase years of horrors and blood._

Alex stares at him from an echo of his memory, crossing her legs - smiling at him.

_What do you think about Care Health? Oh no no, wait, I got it: Health4You. Isn’t it nice?_

Nadine takes the folder to her chest, following him - a loyal dog, an already written victim.  
Anderson puts his hands in his pocket, starts tormenting the pack of cigarettes - and God only knows how he’d like to smoke one.  
“It also needs to recall the old company, make people understand we have changed. That we won’t made the same mistakes of the past.”  
“Obviously.”  
Joseph looks for Nadine’s eyes, running his gaze from her to the man walking between them.

_A monster whose eyes are fire and holding a serpent in his heart - in his fingers._

“I’d go for New Umbrella.”  
_Great_ , Alex exclaims, elbowing him in his ribs, _that’s right, seems perfect to me: not that Edonia and China weren’t to be unseen, uh?  
_ “We can’t; it was Derek Simmon’s secret company.” Nadine participates, wrinkling her nose.

_Oh, she’s got a brain, too; what a perfect union._

The silver serpent creaks in his grip, Nadine looks at him with worried - frightened - eyes.  
  
_Is she always like that? You just show off your muscles and she runs away to her little pink corner while repeating you are a knight under that beast- a beautiful, shining knight?_ _God, I regret Excella sometimes._

He stops, breathing in deeply.  
Joseph takes advantage of the moment and eats a strawberry candy, chewing it noisily - tense.  
Nadine stiffens, feeling her body stretch - _there_ , where his bites are still bleeding and _burning_.  
He focuses on an undefined point in the wall before them, Alex a neat and young profile.

_Oh, death performs miracles, you know? Just look at me: it seems I’m almost eighteen._

“Blue Umbrella.” he then says, placing his cane forward and walking again “Light blue reassures people. A _stupid_ Pavlovian reflex.”  
Nadine nods, giving him a disarming - beautiful - smile.  
Anderson swallows the candy, resisting the temptation of eating another one.  
Alex’s eyes are all that matters.

 

**Unknown location, 2018**

  
The man they sent to question her has an open and sincere expression.

_A good American boy loyal to the flag._

Grey sport sweater, tanned skinned; _my_   _name’s Bill_ he says, offering her a glass of water - _you must be thirsty_ \- looking at her with comprehension, maybe even compassion.  
Alex knows these strategies well - she invented them for Spencer - tilts her chin to the right, slipping on the edge of the chair.  
“Natalia; I guess this is all a big mistake, uh? I guess you want to get home as soon as possible.”  
Alex keeps quiet, flexing her back a little bit.  
Bill sighs, leaning back.  
“It doesn’t really help you’re Barry Burton’s adopted girl, you know. Or a survivor of Terragrigia. Or, even worse, one of the few having survived the massacre of Sushestvovanie.”  
Alex raises an eyebrow, hinting at a smile.  
“Do you find it funny, Natalia?”  
“A lot.”  
Bill gives her an irritated grimace - _you’re looking forward to punching me for good, right? -_ drumming his fingers on the metal of the table.  
“You will die here, Natalia: you can only choose how. If you tell us who asked you to infiltrate our servers and _why_ it’ll be painless.”  
The muscles of Bill’s arms tense up under the fabric, a hungry and ferocious spark in his eyes.  
“Otherwise you will die _screaming_.”  
Alex expands her smile, leaning forward - running the tip of her tongue on her lips.  
“ _Fuck you_.”  
Bill suddenly stands up, delivering an uppercut to her solar plexus and leaving her breathless - he hits her on her face, breaking a cheekbone and knocking her over to the ground.  
“Last warning, _Natalia_ : I don’t give a fucking shit you’re a seventeen year old girl. You’re like any other whore to me.”  
Alex spits out blood and saliva, baring her teeth - staring at him, and something _trembles_ inside the room, _roaring_.  
“I want to talk to your boss.”  
Bill releases a dry, harsh laugh.  
“You’re not in a position to ask for anything, bitch.”  
“I will not tell you twice, _Bill_.” she slightly bends over herself, stretching, and chains starts to give in.  
Bill draws near, sitting on his heels - grabbing a lock of her hair and lifting her head by brute force.  
“Are you still a virgin, by chance?”  
“Wanna find out?”  
Bill shows an _obscene_ smile - ceramic veneers and whitening products.  
“I don’t know where all your stupidity comes from, _Natalia_ : maybe that Burton idiot. Or Redfield.”  
He closes a hand around her neck, the other one on her exposed breast - he _squeezes_ , and his breath vaguely smells like tobacco and mint.  
“I’ll fuck you so hard you’re going to beg for mercy, Natalia. And then, I’ll kill you. Your secret - _ours_ \- will be buried ten meters underground, eaten by dogs and worms.”  
Alex closes her eyes, breathes in - she releases the Progenitor virus, all of his brutal strength.  
And Bill can _feel_ it; he senses _something_ is changing - writhing beneath Natalia’s skin like a mass of snakes agitating - _swelling_ \- by the sound of her voice.  
He’s about to pull out his knife when Alex _shatters_ the chains around her wrists, those around her ankles.  
He’s about to retreat when Alex bends in an attack position - she _jumps_ , crushing him to the ground.  
He’s about to scream when the first fist hits his face, making him spit out all of his _ridiculous_ ceramic veneers.  
“I said...” Alex starts, hitting him a second time, smashing his temples.  
“... I _want_...” spurt of blood and bones, Bill’s eye leaving the orbit, rolling by his side - the left one exploding with a dull _pop!_ inside his skull.  
“... to meet...” she grabs him by his shoulders, lifting him up: she then beats him on the concrete once, twice, _three times_ ; she observes the occipital section crumbling like a rotten fruit, Bill’s face deforming in a withered rose.  
“... your boss!” she puts his fingers in his mouth, grabbing his lower jaw with the right hand, the upper jaw with the left - she _opens_ _up_ , tearing him apart to his throat.  
Bill is dead.  
Alex sits on his blood, her breath an asymmetrical and rough wheeze - her furious and _blinding_ heartbeat.  
She vaguely notices the sirens ringing inside the room, red in her eyes, on the walls, under her nails.  
She places her eyes on the men in black entering from the side door, guns drawn, the logo of the Red Umbrella on their arms.  
Alex breathes in deeply, clearing her throat - standing up and removing a piece of brain from between her breasts.  
“I’d like to talk to your boss if you don’t mind.” she simply says, attempting to smile - but the result is just a bloody and cruel line.  
“Bill sadly had the _unfortunate_ idea to answer negatively.”  
She opens her hands before her, palms upwards, raising her eyebrows in an encouraging manner.  
“And I’d like to wash. And wear something. You know, killing people in lingerie is not pleasant. Unless it’s some sort of erotic play.”  
From the other side of the mirrored glass Nadine types _his_ phone number with wet and fearful fingers.

 

**Unknown location, 2016**

  
“This is deep.”  
Nadine runs along the whitish and chapped line across his side, half-opening her lips.  
“It must have hurt.”  
He looks at her with the same vacuity of the wolves,

“ _You look like a statue.” (1)_

wondering _when_ she earned all of that courage.

_Fucking the boss is a good incentive perhaps, isn’t it?_

Nadine crosses her legs, keeps on studying him thoughtfully - captivated.  
“No one believed you really existed, you know?”  
She draws little circles on the protrusion of his hips, tilting her head.  
“You officially died in 1998.”  
Nadine breathes in, carrying on her exploration.  
“Then in 2009”.  
She stops by the hollow of his knee, her fingers lukewarm and uncertain stings.  
“No man could have survived.”  
“Do I look like a man to you?”  
Nadine averts her eyes, placing them on the adjacent wall.  
“No.”  
She keeps silent for some moments, moving a lock of hair away from her forehead.  
“No.” she repeats, looking for his eyes - reptilian, _empty_ pupils - his heartbeat like the frenzied whirling of wings of a little bird caught in a trap.  
“You’re the only survivor of a Project not even Ashford knew about.”

_The girl did her homework, I see._

“The Wesker Children. Ambitious. A bit too much Third Reich-style, if you ask me.”  
“I did not.”  
Nadine stiffens her back, her breath accelerated.

_Poor thing: did the big bad wolf eat your tongue?_

“I...” she swallows, crossing her arms on her breasts and hiding “I didn’t want to offend you.”

_Ah! Offend! She irritated you at most – ruffled your feathers._

Nadine keeps quiet, letting silence extend between them like lead - heavy and unhealthy.  
She scratches her wrist, distracted, giving him a sideways and suspicious look.  
“Anyway, I’m not the only one who survived the experiment.”  
Nadine regains a bit of her colour, _imperceptibly_ stretching towards him - hungry, curious.  
“Subject #12; she was still alive in 2009, too.”  
Nadine takes some moments to think about it, then nods.  
“That’s right; Alexandra Wesker.”  
She gives him a sideways look again, uncertain.  
“You looked like each other.”  
“Not anymore.” he replies, leaning against the headboard of the bed.  
Nadine opens her mouth, then closes it: in the beast’s eyes something _horribly_ similar to regret lies.

 

**Unknown location, 2018**

 

“You need to come here, _now_.”  
Nadine’s voice holds a hysterical, _terrified_ shade.  
“I do not accept orders from you, Nadine.”  
A frustrated moan; agitated background voices, the urgent pitter-patter of frenzied feet.  
“ _You don’t understand_.” Nadine hisses “The girl that violated our servers...”  
“Agent Burton’s adoptive child.” he interrupts her, irritated “Don’t tell me they had problems capturing a...”  
“ _She isn’t human!_ ” Nadine then shouts, sticking her nails into her scalp “ _She isn’t human, fuck!_   She’s just butchered ten of our men, _ten!_ ”

Silence.

Nadine pants, cold fingers, the sour savour of adrenaline beneath her skin, down her throat.  
“She asked about you.” she murmurs, and his breath stops on the other end of the phone “She keeps on asking about you.”  
“Does she know me?”  
It takes Nadine some seconds to understand what is that her boss is talking about, she swallows.  
“No. _No_ , but she wants to talk to _whoever is in charge of this pile of shit_ , quoting her.”  
Static noise, some interferences.  
“What do I have to tell her?”  
“I’m on my way.”

Click.

Nadine holds the phone tight with both her hands, barely raising her eyes on the mirrored glass - and the girl is still _there_ , a whole squad of Reaper around her and her foot tapping rhythmically on the bloody floor.

Ciaff, ciaff, ciaff.

 ~~Natalia~~ Alex suddenly turns her head, staring at her - her pupils a thin and blackish thread.  
She then raises a hand towards her and greets - she smiles, and Nadine is barely able to hold a scream.  
Death has the same ruthless laugh of a seventeen year old girl.

 

**Unknown location, 2016**

  
“You will cooperate with the BSAA.”  
Anderson loosens the knot of his tie, nervous.  
“You will say you found the projects of these anti-B.O.W. weapons in a forgotten facility of the old Umbrella.”  
He sets the cuff of his shirt, controlling the cufflink made of gold and sapphire.  
“That they were signed by me.”  
He suddenly raises his head, staring at him.  
“Isn’t this a bit... _suspicious_?”  
“Not at all.” Nadine steps in, a dust blue shirt on her skin and a cup of ginseng coffee in her hands “What’s a better proof of honesty? The origin of those weapons would be a shame for any other company, but not for ours.”  
She crosses her legs, hinting a smile.  
“Where the others hide, we will _show_ ; if this isn’t trust, then I don’t know what trust is.”  
Anderson bends his head over his chest, drumming his fingers on the arm of the armchair.  
“It may work.”  
“It will.”  
His eyes runs again on the snake head lying near his joined hands - tighter coils, bigger and bigger jaws.  
“Fine.” he then says, smoothing an invisible fold on his charcoal trousers. “I’m holding a press conference tomorrow.”  
“I want this prototype to be entrusted to one of the founders of the BSAA.”  
Joseph frowns, looking at a heavily modified Beretta 92F 9mm.  
“Christopher James Redfield.”  
“Why?”  
“The reason is of no consequence for you, _Joseph_.”  
Anderson brushes the project with his fingertips, uncertain.  
“It’s personal, isn’t?”  
Nadine gets down from the edge of the desk, putting a hand on his shoulder - smiling at him.  
“Does this change anything, uh?”  
Anderson moves his eyes from Nadine towards him - his legs hidden behind the heavy solid wooden furniture, his rigid shoulders, his eyes behind dark and reflecting lenses.  
“No.” he replies after some seconds of uncertainty “It doesn’t make any difference who’s holding what. Not to me.”  
Nadine extends her smile, _he_ keeps on looking at him with that impassive and empty face.   
Anderson walks to the door in silence.

 

**Unknown location, 2018**

  
The Progenitor virus growls, _scratches_ \- it agitates amongst his ribs, along his back.  
It wraps around his cells, invading each thought - painting the world black _and_ black.  
He clings to the head of the asp with cold and rigid fingers, thinning his lips.  
_Who are you?_ , he murmurs, and on the other side something responds.

_Beautiful. Terrible. Wild._

The Progenitor virus slips beneath the skin, rises in all of its broken greatness, a lion **never** to be tamed, a beast **never** to be defeated.  
His left knee pulsates like an infected wound, a reddish and restless glimmer in his eyes.

 _ **What** _ _are you?_

The elevator keeps on its unaware race, swallowed by the belly of the beast like the thoughtless Jonah.  
The Progenitor virus _trembles_ and calls an already dead name.

**  
  
Unknown location, 2017**

  
Eveline is three according to her papers, ten in the photo depicting her in an aseptic lab without a window.  
Empty eyes, hidden by a handful of black and ruffled hair - Eveline is the next step of an evolution transforming children into weapons, adults into victims.   
He studies her pale face, the stuffed tiger she holds by her chest - worn out, dirty.  
_Evie_ wants a family.  
She wants someone to laugh together with, to cry with.  
She wants a mother cooking for her a pink and white sugar glazed cake - a father taking a blurry and asymmetric picture of her while blowing out the candles.  
She wants a sister, a brother: Eveline _**wants** _ , and he wonders if this _hunger_ is the only trait pooling all of them - stolen children, dismembered and recreated in _his_ own image.  
He averts his eyes, placing them on the last drawer of the desk - closed.  
A forgotten folder, partially burnt.  
A clump of words and reports, dates and clinical examinations.  
Two photos - the only left after months of mutations and horrible diseases.

 _A threadbare teddy bear in her hands, black little polished shoes on her feet.  
_ _A white dress, a young, still childish face - without a smile._

Subject #12.

 _A jacket that is too loose for his age, already sharp cheekbones.  
_ _Arctic, wolfish eyes._

Subject #13.

Eveline stares at him from a picture where colours are just a ruthless joke, a terrible warning: bright lights and reflexes making him notice even better the desperate spark lying on the bottom of those pitch black eyes without a shade.  
It’s quite bizarre how you manage to run from your mistakes only to make them again.

 

**Unknown location, 2018**

 

“Is that her?”  
“Yes.”  
“Did she do all of this by herself?”  
Nadine nods, placing by his side.

_Because the monster on the other side of the glass is much worse than that she offers herself to every night._

“Maybe we should call another squad.”  
“No.” he interrupts her “It won’t be needed.”  
Natalia Korda Burton sits in the midst of a bloody mush of human guts - red cheekbones, red eyes.  
“She’s got your own... _characteristics_.” Nadine murmurs, and the stench of her fear is nauseating.  
Natalia takes her hands above the head, stretching herself out lazily.  
“She’s a B.O.W., alpha type.”  
She stretches her legs forward, swinging her feet to the right, then to the left.  
“Thermal detectors only detected an aberration when she responded to Bill’s blows: then, all parameters went out of scale.”  
A regular profile, even aristocratic; thin, piano fingers.  
“No one asked her to enter our servers, she says: our security sucks and back in Spencer’s days - _putrid, shitty old man_ , quoting her - they didn’t joke about these things, at least.”  
Something agitates among his cells, burning his thoughts, his breath.  
“But she’s too young to know: she’s _only_ seventeen.”  
Natalia half-closes her eyes, standing up - she starts walking across the room on her tip toes, avoiding an arm cut off, a leg torn apart.  
“And she laughed. She was _laughing_ when killing them.”  
Natalia stops, turning her back to him - thin hips, tonic thighs.  
“You can even come in.” she suddenly says, and Nadine starts “I’ve been waiting for you for quite some time.”  
She turns again - an extremely white glimmer between her red, cold lips.  
“For almost ten years, _Albert_.”  
The world collapses and is swallowed by her words.

 

**Unknown location, 2017**

  
In precarious balance on the edge of the top of the building he looks at a cold and colourless city.  
His cane abandoned in his office, bare hands - without protection.  
He turns the palms upward, studying them - the thin line of fortune, the tortured line of fate.

_The heart line broken, cut off._

Sometimes he wonders what is that he’s doing: the reason _why_.  
News about Arias’ death had not been a surprise at all - neither that of his plan of taking her dead wife back through Rebecca Chambers.  
He stares at his left ring finger - empty.  
_They’re always with me_ , Glenn had told him during one of their first meetings, _they remind me_ _**why** _ _I’m doing this_.  
He had showed him two yellow gold band rings, the first one polished, the second one blackened on the edges.  
_I was holding her hand when it happened_ , Arias had then continued, totally uninterested about the fact he was listening to him or not, _when I stood up only her white dressed arm was left.  
_ He had then placed a broken gaze on him, a sorrowful grimace.  
_I knew my job was dangerous; that it could have killed me, but Sarah?  
_ On the adjacent skyscraper the symbol of Blue Umbrella **shines** \- _our business is your health_ \- underneath his feet the past **lives** again, not giving up on its ragged remains.  
Kilometres away from that place Eveline is desperately crying out for help one last time.

 

**Unknown location, 2018**

  
He has changed.

_They both have._

Alex follows his uncertain steps with her eyes, the ebony and silver cane he clings to with his right hand - the head of the snake, its opened jaws.  
He’s got greyer hair on his temples, on his nape: even new little wrinkles around his eyes.  
Wesker takes off his glasses, stares at her - torbid red irises, almost as if they were coagulated blood.  
A white shirt, black trousers: he wears no leather nor metal; just disarming simplicity.  
“Who are you?” he asks, and his voice - _oh_ , his voice - hasn’t changed at all.

_It’s just more tired, worn-out on the last syllables - consumed._

_It’s me_ , she would say, _it’s Alex_ , but those words die in her throat, suddenly trapped in a knot threatening to break her in half.  
She opens her mouth, closes it - taking both hands to her face and rubbing it roughly.  
“How do you know my name?” he goes on, and his breath is like glass - cutting, wounding, **killing**.  
“I...” she starts, moistening her lips.  
“It’s me.” she then murmur, a thin voice, suddenly childish.  
Wesker raises an eyebrow, leaning heavily upon his cane - and Alex can see his weakness, the unnatural pose of his legs.  
“Natalia Korda Burton.” he calls her, and Alex would like to shout _no, it’s not true. Natalia is dead, dead! It’s me, Albert: it’s Alex.  
_ And maybe it’s her new _stupid_ body betraying her, or just a feeling that had been poisoning her for too much time.  
Maybe it’s the adrenaline, or the rage - she doesn’t know, and then she starts crying.  
She cries, and her huge tears are those of a frightened child, a confused girl.

_Of a lost woman._

They are everything she was never able to tell - _to confess_.  
Wesker stares at her speechlessly, keeping quiet.  
Through the tears the Progenitor virus makes the only reasonable choice: the only one still holding a little meaning.

 _It calls for him -_ _**invoking** _ _him._

Albert hardly draws back, releasing a breathless wheeze - **one** name, **one** story.  
“Alexandra.”  
Nadine looks at ~~Natalia~~ running into the monster’s arms and find refuge there.

 

 

********

 

 

**Something ugly this way comes,  
through my fingers sliding inside.**

The prisoner exits the room by Wesker’s side, leaving little reddish footsteps on the floor, along the corridor.  
Nadine looks at them walking away together, the way he _lets_ her lean against his body - against his asperities.  
And _something_ has changed, she understands, indeed.  
Power _has moved_ hands - master.  
Nadine swallows, staring at the butchered bodies of the soldiers, _emptied out_ by the same fingers Wesker let touch his face, his lips.  
Time has done his last turn, the hourglass is almost empty: her hopes have already turned into ashes _and_ dust.

 

**All these blessings, all these burns,  
I'm godless underneath your cover.**

He looks at her as if he didn’t believe in it, yet.  
He stares at her studying the room with curious, _young_ eyes.  
Alex leans forward, gazes at the data sliding on the screen of the laptop.  
“A new virus?”  
Albert keeps quiet, moving the cane into his left hand - all of his weight on that side.  
“You still don’t trust me.”  
“I don’t know.”  
Alex nods, averting her eyes - she sighs.  
“I... my plan succeeded, Albert.”  
Alex moistens her lips, pointing at the leather armchair.  
“Can I?”  
Wesker moves his hand before him in a quick, unconcerned manner.  
Alex sits down, crossing her legs - her arms covering her breasts, suddenly aware of her nudity.  
“You died.” she starts, avoiding his gaze “You died, Albert.”  
“I know.”  
“You left me alone.”

Silence.

Alex scratches a stain of dried blood with her thumb nail, biting her lower lip.  
“I looked for you.” she admits, barely smiling.  
“I came to Tricell HQs before the BSAA, but didn’t find anything.”  
She breathes in deeply, staring at an undefined point on the grey wall.  
“Not even a body, nothing from which to restart.”  
She turns, looking at him.  
“Just _this_.” she points at her left ring finger, where a white gold and obsidian band ring _burns_ “Ashes from hell and nothing more. Excella? Dead. Ricardo? Dead. Tricell? Failed.”  
“Anyone would know that: Chris surely didn’t stay quiet about my death. He even got a medal of honour for that.”  
Alex takes her knees to her chest, tilting her chin towards him.  
“Don't mock my pain, Albert: that’s not kind.”  
“If you are Alex you should know I was _never_ a kind man.”  
“No, it’s true.” Alex agrees “But you were to me. In your own way.”  
Albert closes his fingers in a fist, opening them again.  
“It can’t be.” he repeats “You can’t be alive. I read the reports about your death. You shot yourself in the head and six months later Burton and Claire Redfield destroyed you once and for all.”  
“I am no beast to hunt down and kill, Albert.” she admonishes him “And I don’t like the tone you’re talking to me.”  
“You could be an imitation.”  
“And you could be his clone: Simmons did it already with Ada.”  
Wesker shortens the distance between them, sitting on his heels - taking her chin between his thumb and index finger and _pressing_.  
“You are dead.” he says again, and his voice _crumbles_ \- defeated.  
Alex lifts up towards his face and _sinks_.

 

**Search for pleasure, search for pain,  
in this world now I am undying,  
I unfurl my flag, my nation helpless.  
**

The girl pouring over on him like a liquid shadow is seventeen.  
She’s seventeen, the same eyes as his, golden threads around her face, on her shoulders.  
She’s seventeen, a different body, the same soul as always.  
Intertwining her fingers in his hair, she looks for his mouth - his breath.  
“ _Albert_.”  
The Progenitor virus explodes and _remembers_.

 

**Black black heart, why would you offer more?  
Why would you make it easier on me to satisfy?**

The memory of the eyes is fallacious, a deceit of light and colours.  
We soon forget faces, expressions; sometimes even what made us smile of _them_ \- pale remains in our hearts.  
A graveyard full of ancient vestiges, wind-whitened bones chewed by the sand of time: this we are, nothing more.  
Albert slips the tip of his fingers across her hair, testing its consistency, its thickness.  
“They weren't like this.” Alex interrupts him, reddish rivulets of water running down her back “Natalia had brown hair; when the Progenitor virus woke up they started lightening naturally.”  
He breathes her scent in - argan _and_ blood - gently running his lips, his tongue, along the curve of her neck.  
Alex half-closes her eyes, relaxing against his chest - sighing.  
Wesker runs his index finger between her breasts, brushing one - full and _soft_ in his hand.  
Alex releases a sudden moan, intertwining her legs with his - _pushing_ , and feeling him _flex_ behind her, a movement her body has never forgotten.  
“I have to get used to it.” she replies, gripping his wrist.  
Alex laughs, and it’s a strange, embarrassed sound.  
“I’ve never... been so young. Not really.”  
She bends her head down, focusing on the scars the volcano left on him and counting them - feeling the weakness of the muscles beneath his skin, of the elastic fibres of his tendons.  
“Extraordinary.” she murmurs, bewitched “The virus regenerated you starting from...”  
“A rib.” Wesker finishes for her, while drawing little circles around her navel with his fingers.  
Alex nods, the Progenitor virus tightly wrapped around Albert’s - hot, comforting.  
"But you can’t still walk properly.”  
Wesker interrupts his exploration, staring at her.  
Alex touches his left knee - unrecognizable - over and over again, placing a lukewarm, soft kiss on it.  
“It doesn’t matter.” she then says, getting back to leaning against his chest “You will recover; you always did, after all.”  
Albert listens to Alex’s breath slow down and become a peaceful background murmur.

 

**I'm on fire, I'm rotting to the core,  
I'm eating all your kings and queens,  
all your sex and your diamonds.**

“Can I sleep with you?”  
“Alex would never ask.”

 _A different time, the same question.  
_ _A dead city by now, red and golden lights illuminating their profiles, their skin. (2)_

“The old Alex died swallowing her own poison, Albert: I’m not that woman anymore. Not entirely, at least.”  
Wesker gazes at her from the other side of the bed, a harsh profile that the light filtrating from the door of the bathroom barely illuminates.  
Alex sighs, exhausted - emptied at once.  
She lifts the bed sheet up, then the blanket: dropping the bath towel on the floor, she curls up aside and slightly stretches - naked.  
“I’m _tired_ , Albert.” she says, and there’s an ancient - _old_ \- inflexion in her voice.  
She offers him her hand from under the bed sheet, moving her fingers towards him.  
“Just one night; one night and if tomorrow morning you’re not yet convinced of my words you can kill me. Is it a good settlement for you?”  
Wesker studies the hand she’s offering him, the white gold and obsidian band shining on her left ring finger.  
He takes it, letting her promises lead him - listening to the virus _screams_ that reality both of them had kept hidden like the worst shame.  
Alex puts her arm around his waist, closing her eyes: for the first time in months Albert sleeps without a nightmare.

 

**As I begin to lose my grip,  
on these realities your sending.**

He finds her awake when he gets up - a pale profile wrapped in one of his black shirts.  
She gathered her hair in a messy knot on her nape, a cup of coffee in her tapered fingers.  
Sit at the feet of the bed, she looks at him - smiling when he crosses her eyes.  
She offers him another cup of coffee and looks as he sips it, as he studies her out of the corner of his eye.  
The Progenitor virus is a satisfied predator: it spreads its coils out among calm synapses, sate cells.  
“You still want to kill me, Albert?”  
Everything in her seems to know the answer. 

 

**Covers lie and we will bend  
and borrow with the coming sign. **

“Is it so clear?” he asks her while she’s clothing, a black skirt wrapping her hips, white satin and macramé lace trim.  
“What? Blue Umbrella being a shell corporation?”  
Wesker curls his lips on his teeth, releasing an irritated - annoyed - sound.  
Alex wears her shoes (Louboutin; black velvet, golden sole), runs her index under the lower lip, removing excess lipstick.  
“That the weapons you provided the BSAA with are just an expedient to use their soldiers as lab rats? That the recent E-type B.O.W. is part of a project your private militia started back in 2000? That _underneath_ , where people always forgets to search, hides instead...”  
Wesker raises a hand, interrupting her.  
Alex hints at him a smile, barely tilting her head to the right.  
She’s always been better at playing this game.

 

**The tide will take,  
the sea will rise and time will rape.**

There will be _adjustments_ \- she knows.  
There will still be moments in which he’ll be dubious, maybe suspicious, too.  
There’ll be secrets unleashed, words left rotting for too long on dead and pale lips.  
There will be instants stolen from the past, fragments extracted from the future.

 _There will be them - subject #12, subject #13 - dead and then reborn and dead then again; an everlasting cycle that had_ _**always** _ _trapped them._

Alex barely brushes his cane, stopping by the head of asp - intertwining her fingers with his.  
She won’t tell him his weakness reminds her of Spencer - hands perpetually contracted on the neck of a wooden and pewter swan.  
She won’t tell him he has aged: that death returned him all those years the Progenitor virus had taken away in one night.

_No, she won’t._

The elevator doors open, showing her corridors where Umbrella’s red and white logo shows itself off - a déjà vu.  
Albert looks for her eyes, _clinging_ to her - asking, claiming.  
In his thoughts fear belongs to both.

 

 

********

 

 

**Unknown location, 2018**

  
Two months: it’s been two months since she last slept with him.  
It’s been two months since that strange girl had come, changing _**everything** _.  
The day after her capture she was by his side as if it was her place.   
She started correcting projects, experimental protocols; she modified the list of the employees, of the lab technicians.  
She walks among them as if she’d **always** been there - a ruthless shade in her eyes that makes the veins in her wrists tremble.  
“Nadine.” she says to her, stretching her hand out “Subject B - 023’s slide.”  
Nadine tightly holds the pen in her fingers, silently passing her the slide - irritated.  
“Is something bothering you, _Nadine_?”  
“No.”  
Alex leans back to the seatback of the chair, smiling.  
“Come on, _Nadine_ : don’t be shy.” she props her elbows against her knees, letting her hands dangle between her legs “We are colleagues, aren’t we? You can tell me what upsets you.”  
Nadine sees the trap - _she doesn’t mind_ \- gets the irony - _die, you fucking bitch_ \- and hastily answers, without thinking before.  
“I don’t understand what qualifications you have so you can stay. You are nobody. You killed our men as if they were dogs and doctor Wesker welcomed you here instead of killing you - as if you were important. _Useful_.”  
“And am I not, Nadine? _Useful_?”  
Alex drums her fingers on the arm of the chair, giving her an empty look - transparent like a winter lake.  
Nadine keeps quiet, _vibrating_ \- fear, rage; a _magnificent_ clot of repressed feeling eating her from the inside.  
Alex stands up, placing a hand on her shoulder - feeling her startle, trying to back out from her touch.  
“See? It wasn’t much of a challenge to spit it out.”  
She surpasses her, taking her lab coat off; Nadine stares at her bewilderedly - relieved.  
Fate’s already chosen the page on which her story will end.

 

**Unknown location, 2018**

  
There’s one truth lying heavily between them.  
There’s a name none of the two is brave enough to say - not yet.  
Albert listens to Nadine’s words - the way she gets irritated every time ~~Natalia~~ Alex is mentioned.  
He turns to her, staring: her reddened cheeks, her clenched fists, her _life_ running beneath her skin like poison, an incurable disease.  
He draws near, taking her face in his hands - and Nadine _gives_ , as it’s her flesh being consecrated to the new Zeus.  
“Nadine.” he murmurs, absorbed.  
Confident, _overflowing_ eyes.  
Albert studies her for some more instants, looking for her mouth, her breath - a fall of red _and_ red in his fingers.  
“You have been an _excellent_ asset, Nadine.”  
And then, _something_ warps - mutates.  
And then he feels her stiffen against his body - _stretch out_ , try a hopeless escape.  
Wesker traps her nape, taking her towards him with a harsh movement of his wrist - he presses her face against his shirt and...

Crack.

Nadine _falls_ ,

_  
You said we’d change this world together!_

  
hitting the crystal coffee table, crashing it,

_  
Edonia is full of men like you, Albert: cruel, ruthless; even to themselves._

   
lying then lifeless on the blue Egyptian carpet.  
  


_You died, Albert. You died, leaving me alone - defeated.  
  
_

Blame is the only feeling never leaving him.

 

**Unknown location, 2018**

  
Nadine hadn’t shown up that morning. The next day neither and the day after that neither again. This had gone on for two weeks, when someone from the security had come to bring all of her personal effects away, explaining that doctor Nadine Clark had been relocated to another sector.

 _More suitable for her skills_ , the exact words.

Alex looks for Albert’s eyes, waiting - a copy of Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis in her fingers.  
“I didn’t do it for you.”  
“I know.”  
“I had to.”  
“Sure.”  
“I’m not yet convinced you are who you say you are.”  
Alex shrugs, getting back to her book.  
Wesker looks at her slipping back into his life as if she’d always been part of it.

 

 

********

 

 

**And we'll hide in the graphite,  
deep inside the earth,  
and wait for the fires to start. **

  
“Where are you going?” she asks him, bare feet plunging in his carpet, blueberry dark chocolate in her hands.  
“If you’ve really got the Progenitor virus then you should known, _Alex_.”  
And the girl _smiles_.  
She smiles; her blond hair gathered in a high and messy chignon - a _neat_ scent on her skin, argan and patchouli.  
She eats another chocolate square, tiding the tip of her fingers on her naked thigh - wearing nothing more than a light blue bath towel.  
“You’re heading to your office because you need to be alone.” she anticipates, staring at him.  
“ _Because you need to catch up with a few backlog_ , you will tell to yourself."  
She draws near, pressing her index finger on his chest - half-closing her eyes, her lips.  
“The truth is you can’t still accept the fact it’s me. You don’t _want_ to.”  
“Alexandra died in 2011. She shot herself in the head and the virus had the very bad idea to bring her back, deformed. Six months later agents Barry Burton and Claire Redfield definitely put her to rest.”  
Alex closes her fingers in a fist on his shirt, gazing at the golden buttons, the thin and soft texture of the fabric.  
“I know.”  
She lifts her head up, a quiet awareness in her eyes _horrifying_ him.  
“And it hurts, Albert.  _Too much_.”  
She draws her hand - herself - back; bending her head down and sighing.  
The wounds of the soul are the ones not even the Progenitor virus will ever cure.

 

**In your eyes,  
deep inside the earth.  
In your eyes,  
calling out for something.  
**

She fell asleep on the sofa; hands to her chest, a book of Joe Hill to the ground.  
She breathes quietly, and _now_ \- free of her voice and thoughts - the Progenitor virus is the only thing he can feel.  
He brushes her shoulders with his fingertips, slipping down the curve of her arm and the soft one of her hip.  
The Progenitor virus _stretches_ under his hands, stretching out towards him and making a satisfied cry.

_  
A purring cat._

  
Wesker can feel it against his palm, underneath his skin - a heat turning off **any** doubt, **any** concern.  
“Alex.” he murmurs, and her virus wraps all around his, gently brushing him in a _horribly_ familiar way.  
He breathes in deeply, running with his fingers along the round shape of her buttocks, the muscular profile of her thighs.  
~~Natalia~~ Alex suddenly pulls her feet back when he reaches the sole, hinting a smile in her sleep.

_  
A known movement, managing to get a half-smile out of him every time.  
  
_

The Progenitor virus spreads out towards him, opening like a beautiful _**and** _ poisonous flower - _inviting_ him.  
Wesker stands above her, a looming and dark shadow.  
He slightly moves her forward, taking her against his chest: he hides his face in her hair, closing his eyes.  
The sofa is too small for both of them, but Alex curls up against him and grabs the collar of his shirt - murmuring his name.  
The Progenitor virus stops screaming for one night.

 

**Taste your mind and taste your sex,  
I'm naked underneath your cover.**

  
In the silence of the bedroom Alex is a line curled up against his back.  
She presses her feets on his vertebrae, breathing in his hair - looking for him, murmuring his name.  
Wesker _relaxes_ underneath her hands, listening to the Progenitor virus _wake up_ \- recognize her.  
He still tells her he doesn’t trust her every now and then: that she could be a very well done imitation of Alexandra Wesker.  
Those times she answers then that _he_ could be the clone but, in the end, she wouldn’t care much: _they did a very good job after all_ , she always ends it, looking at him up and down.  
Alex slips in between his hips, dominating him - running with her tongue on the fibrous line of his chest, the compact one of the abdomen, and going _down_ , laughing against his erection, a vibration coming through his body to his chest.  
He runs his fingers across her mouth, her tongue: clawing at her nape he _pushes_ \- knocking her over the bed sheets, getting a surprised look out of her.  
Alex is a new body: damp thighs opening under his hands - soaked by a desire he recognize as his own.  
He brushes the tender skin of her groin, taking her legs above his shoulders - reducing her to nothing more than a suffocated moan against the pillow.  
Alex stands up on her elbows, looking at him from behind heavy, languid eyelids.  
Baring her teeth, she then falls back - a hand against the bed head, the other one gripping his hair.  
“Albert.” she murmurs, and it’s the same voice of a life before.  
“Albert.” she implores, and it’s Africa again, Sushestvovanie, _Raccoon City_.  
“Albert.” she repeats, arching against his face - on his mouth, for his tongue.  
Wesker plunges his fingers in the soft flesh of her thighs, _goes on_ \- merciless, voracious - and listens to her orgasm _ride_ , become a knot of longing and confused words and release at once - _**for him, on him.**  
_ Alex _comes_ , an arch of skin and _hunger_ \- then changes positions and remains suspended on him, halfway.  
Her hair tangled on the tips, reddened cheeks - Alex lets a liquid gasp out when he brushes in between her _soaking_ thighs.  
It’s an instant: a fragment of time in which they _find_ themselves.

 _  
Again:_ _**always.** _

  
Alex lowers on him at once, taking the breath away from both.  
Something _breaks_ , and Wesker finds himself wrapped in a hot, sticky sensation.  
Alex hints at a smile seeing his disoriented expression, leaning her forehead against his chest - suddenly fragile.  
“Yeah.” she only says, answering to his silent question.  
Alex stands still; breathes in and then slowly lifts up, letting out a wounded yelp.  
“I... I didn’t remember...”  
And Wesker wonders if _this_ is the Alex he would have met if Spencer and all of his madness hadn’t been there.  
He wonders if _this_ \- a girl whose gaze still holds such a pristine and blinding innocence - **is** Alexandra Wesker.

 _  
No deceits, no missed words: a free and_ complete _woman._

   
Wesker leans upon his elbows, looking for her mouth and kissing her calmly, slowly - moving his hips between hers and listening to her ache become longing and eventually _hunger_.  
And that’s when Alex transforms into Hera, opening up to his thrusts, to a desire staining her eyes red and her lips with his name.  
Alex _burns,_ and she’s timeless: old, young, **eternal.  
** She grabs his knees with both her hands, leaning back - _pressing_  down, but those scars stopped _screaming_ long ago.  
Blood rivulets between her thighs, all along his erection; they bite _**and**_ rip _**and**_ _fuck_ as nothing has ever changed.

_  
Everything._

  
Alex sinks - she _comes_ , dragging both of them to an orgasm always tasting the same, made of the same consistence.  
Wesker hides his face in the hollow of her shoulder and follows without a doubt.

 

**Unknown location, 2019**

  
In Toronto’s local newspaper it’s just a short paragraph on page 20; in the national one an ink stain of no consequence.  
“You’re dead to the world, _Natalia_.”  
Alex reads Barry’s heartfelt plea - _if someone gets to know something about her, please contact me at 001 - 2398723_ \- eating a half meringue, licking the sugar she got on her fingertips.  
Wesker caresses the hair on her nape with cold, gloved fingers, _grabbing_ it - leaning her head back, searching for _something_.

 _  
Doubt, maybe. Fear.  
_ _Regret perhaps, sorrow._

  
“No one is coming to save you.”  
Alex opens her eyes wide, taking her hand by her chest - exhaling a quivering sigh.

_  
Wearing the mask of the victim - a frightened and hesitant Desdemona._

  
“And what about me?”  
Wesker tthins his eyes, stiffening the line of his jaw - drawing her closer to his mouth, bare teeth, and rubbing against her cheek.

 _  
A hunting wolf; a cruel_ _**and** _ _hungry god._

  
“I’ll do what I please, _Alex_.”  
Beneath his hands Alex transforms into a beautiful and ruthless Semiramis.

 

**Unknown location, 2019**

   
“Why?” she asks one night, a clean face, messy hair “Why did you found Umbrella again?”  
Wesker barely raises his eyes from the documents he’s reading, stares at her.  
“Spencer is dead.”  
“The same for us.”  
Alex gets close to the desk, _facing_ him.  
“No.” she replies, going by his side “No, we are _alive_ , Albert.”  
She grabs his wrists, taking his hand on her chest, just below the left breast.  
“That old man’s dream took everything from you, Albert.”  
Wesker focuses on the differences between their hands - Alex’s is smaller, thin and swallowed by his, big and marked by whitish scars.  
“Have you really learnt _nothing_ from your death? From _mine_?”  
Wesker keeps quiet, under his trousers’ fabric the skin of his legs _stretches_ and burns as the first day.  
Alex leans over him, clawing at both arms of the chair - her face placed a few centimetres from his, a vague scent of coffee in her breath.  
“I won’t let you walk that road again, Albert, even if it means I’m going to kill you.”  
Wesker looks for her eyes - the furious determination within, reddish threads trapping an otherwise transparent light blue iris.  
“I know.” he only says, and Alex’s face _changes_ \- transforms into a painful, rabid, disappointed, hopeful grimace.  
“You made a promise once, Albert. Do you remember?”  
“Yes.”  
“You kept it. In your own way, but you did.”

   
“ _I’ll be back.”  
_ “ _And if you won’t?”  
_ “ _Then wait for me.” (3)_

   
“Don’t make me keep mine.”  
Wesker listens to her voice _crumble_ and fall to the ground like many shattered dreams.

 

**Canada, 2019**

  
One year - one year has passed since Natalia went missing.  
Barry refuses to call her dead, carrying on his search.  
_If I gave up eight years ago Moira would be dead by now_ , he repeats, and Claire understands.  
She slips her fingers on their last photo together, the day she got her high school diploma; and there’s always been something out of place in her expression, like a clashing element.  
Clothed in a black sheath dress Natalia seems older than she really is and the melancholic smile she points to the lens is the one of a tired, _scarred_ woman.  
Claire had seen her wrinkle her nose when looking at the show given by Chris eating a huge pepperoni pizza, a forced laugh when Polly had spilled her Coke on the tablecloth.  
Natalia perpetually looked _contracted_ : a bomb on the verge of exploding.  
Everything in her was tense, _on her guard_ : a predator suddenly playing the prey.  
_No, she hadn’t any boyfriend_ , Maggie - her roommate - had told them, _on the contrary, she hardly ever went out and for didactical purposes only. I loved her, you know, but sometimes she bored me to tears.  
_ Claire looks again at the photo - the clear sky, the mowed lawn of the campus.  
Natalia was indeed a quiet girl, maybe even _boring_ for the people of her own age.  
Kathy had told the traumatic events she’d suffered from had made her quiet, suspicious; the psychologist had confirmed, adding it was already enough she could live a normal life.  
Barry had been relieved (who doesn’t like a diligent, level-headed daughter?), Moira and Polly accepted her for how she was.  
But _her_ _?_ What did Natalia think of _this_?  
Barry is on the phone after the umpteenth warning, noting down dates, names, places; Claire stares at Natalia’s face with a harsh, suspicious intensity.

   
“ _They are more blonde, Nat: are you dyeing it?”  
_ “ _No. It’s the sun.”_

  
“ _Uhm... I thought you had brown eyes.”  
_ “ _I got a slight inflammation some days ago; most probably it’s just the effect of the light.”_

   
“ _A rare beef fillet with red wine sauce. Steamed vegetables separated on the plate if you don’t mind. Thanks.”  
_ “ _Is a hamburger with cheddar cheese and chips for mere mortals, Nat?”_

  
Natalia had lost many of her childish traits - sharp cheekbones and lineaments, tonic and slim thighs, _too much_ for a girl avoiding any physical activity.  
Barry ends the phone call, sighing.  
“Red herring?”  
He nods, rubbing his forehead.  
“Seems like she disappeared into thin air, Claire.”  
Burton raises his eyes, revealing how tired they are, wetted by tears he didn’t cry.  
“I feel like I’m dying every time I think about it. I imagine she’s there, lying in a gutter eaten by worms and fishes. I think of the fear, the confusion she must have experienced, all that might have come back to her mind.”  
He sits down, and Claire suddenly sees him as who he really is: an old and frightened father.  
“Or worse: I think of what could have happened _before_. If she was raped, if she was hit. If she asked for help. And _God_ , Claire, how I wish someone would come and tell me _she’s dead. We found the body. No sign of violence, nothing: just a blow to the head, a theft gone wrong_.”  
Barry snuffles, leaning his elbows against the table of the kitchen.  
“Or _she’s alive. She’s fine. We found her, agent Burton, you can pick her up_.”  
Claire comes up beside him, leaning her head against his shoulder - closing her eyes.  
Barry lets out a single, short sob - bending his head down.  
~~Natalia~~ looks at both of them from a photo that will soon become a memory.

 

 **We are, all that remains,  
of a world in chaos broken by change.  
We are light in the dark,  
Calling out for something to spark. **  
  
  
Alex is already awake.  
She turns her back to him, looking at the fireworks colouring the night sky of Venice - golden spirals illuminating the waters of Canal Grande.  
On the table in the corner lies a swordfish fillet left unfinished, a bottle knocked over - Sauvignon Blanc, 1988.  
Red chiffon torn apart hanging from the edge of the bed (Prada), a crinkled shirt on the carpet (Kiton, blue vicuña).  
He catches up with her, his cane forgotten in a corner of the suite, _useless_.  
Wrapped around an Egyptian cotton bed sheet and looking at the sky, mouth half-closed, Alex suddenly looks as young as a eighteen year old girl.  
“I didn’t remember them to be so beautiful.”  
Wesker looks at her sideways, running across her back with his index finger, feeling her _melt_ underneath his hands, satisfyingly sigh.  
She turns to him, hinting at a smile.  
“The Gritti Palace, uh?”  
Albert keeps quiet, carrying on with the exploration - and Alex is _amazed_ at how he’s always able to find something new to make her _implore_ , moan his name.  
“It’s a nice place.” she goes on, gliding with her eyes on his figure, bare skin and old scars “It’s quite a sight.”  
Wesker stops, raising an eyebrow - and Alex laughs, as the Progenitor virus, _ridiculously_ serious, has just murmured her his thought.  
She draws near, intertwining her fingers with his - on her tongue a truth asking for a release, even just to relieve both of them.  
“She’s alive, Albert.”  
Wesker looks for her eyes, studying them - below them people _shouting_ and celebrating a year that is now dying.  
“I left her with an adoptive family, good social class, excellent education. In New York.”  
Alex deeply breathes in, bearing his gaze - a thinning pupil, an iris that is now golden and blood-stained magma.  
“Eve is _alive_ , Albert.”  
Albert strengthens his grab on her hips, _thrusts_ , and pain becomes liquid between her thighs, in her heart.  
“I know you can feel her; her virus. You know that little _sting_ coming and annoying you every now and then is hers. I told her to lie, to hide. To _never_ use the Progenitor virus, to be invisible to our eyes, to theirs.”  
Alex stands on her tiptoes, brushing his lips - breaking his breath.  
“And I want to get her back.”  
Venice _burns,_ welcoming the new year in a cacophony of colours and sounds - pushing darkness and all of its horrors away for some instants.  
Albert lifts her on the stone balustrade, opening her thighs - devouring her surprised gasp and _sinking_.  
Alex arches against his chest, swaying towards the empty space - granting him total and thoughtless trust.  
Soft, _wet_ \- still soaked by an act that had ripped their skin off, their masks; that had left both naked in front of each other, _exposed_.  
She intertwines her fingers in his hair, thrusting her hips towards his - looking for his face, his mouth, murmuring his name.  
To the ground lie the ruins of a chain they had called _fate._

 

 

 

**"Some things are destined to be;  
 it just takes us a couple of tries to get there."  
\- J.R. Ward -  
  
  
**

**Author's Note:**

> (1) Forgotten, (2) Like a gunshot, (3) Underneath the purple rain.


End file.
